Mark Hoover 330's page

As others have said, you or the NPC are only going to make 1 Craft skill check per day, so it's like having a permanent +5. The bonus type is a Luck bonus, which even stacks with other Luck bonuses so inherently more valuable than a Competence bonus.

A Mossy Disk Ioun Stone is a slotless wondrous item. It grants a +5 Competence bonus on a single Knowledge skill. It states that the creator determines the Knowledge, unlike your custom item which, as written, could give a luck bonus to ANY Craft skill 1/day by the wielder.

The mossy disk Ioun Stone costs 5000 GP; 2500 to craft. I could very easily see a GM using that stone as a model for pricing this item. This being the rules questions and about 2 weeks old at this point, IDK if this is helpful but I'd advise your GM to review other skill-enhancing Ioun Stones like this one for a baseline.

The Ravager is a 3PP on the PFSRD site from Frog God Games. It has a built in "ticking clock" to motivate PCs to destroy it; every week it survives, the creature gains 1HD and thus, over time advances in power and therefore in other physical attributes including size. You'd have to make it CN instead of N but otherwise it might fit the bill.

Do you want your PCs to role play more? Or do you like them just the way they are? As things stand now, at least you know how to motivate them.

We're 13 levels into a megadungeon campaign that has been in person and monthly in the middle of a pandemic. Play has gone on literally for years. I no longer have any expectations of their style of play matching mine for the level of roleplaying I personally enjoy.

Really I'm looking for tactical advice, like not letting their high level abilities be restricted or modules/APs that I can steal encounters from. I've always been terrible at designing challenging encounters at most levels of play, but I've gotten slightly better at it for the mid levels, from APL 5-10.

I've literally not run encounters for parties over APL15. I've participated in a couple as a player, but never designed anything. I'm trying to focus on that and mining for inspiration on campaign-ending plot points beyond the campaign-ending plot point I'd already planned for the PCs by APL15.

Do I want them to engage with the setting more? Sure, but I can't MAKE them. By the time PCs hit APL3 they began encountering architecture, writing and non-magical artifacts of the ancient wizards who existed when the megadungeon was first created. It was 6 months later, APL6, when the player running the fire wizard spent a Linguistics rank on the language and actually spent specific Downtime to research that ancient culture.

He didn't do it bc his character had a thirst for lore. He did it bc I offered a +2 Circumstance bonus on some Knowledge and Perception checks if he did so. Regardless of the player guide I made up about the caste system I invented, names of the councilors the PC learned about and so on, the player still asks me to explain why certain things he sees in the dungeon are significant.

Bottom line, these players don't find plot points or have internal motivations for their characters, that is left to me as the GM. The only time the PCs do directly engage with the setting is when there is some kind of mechanical benefit for the PCs.

I can't stress enough that there is nothing wrong with this style of play. It's what my players enjoy. It just simply is not MY style of play. If I'm going to add an entirely new ending to my campaign from APL15-APL20, I'd like to prep for it now and try to foreshadow it in some way.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

I think this is probably the direction I will take things. The players don't seem particularly interested but I don't really have any other plot threads hanging out there since I figured I'd wrap the campaign when the current BBEG buys it.

To be honest, I'm a bit mystified by your players' lack of interest in what seems like a rather intense hook. Are they not interested in the setting and the enemies that would entail, do they not feel like it takes into account their character arcs and goals, or is it something else altogether?

Ask my players, they'll say they care but they can only focus on slaying the BBEG, whichever one is in their sites at the time. Or get this maguffin. Or stop this event or ritual.

One thing at a time, with narrowly defined stakes and consequences. These players have gotten better at roleplaying over the years, but they don't actually inhabit a role. Gaming for them is a mechanical hobby, like a video game or a board game.

Their goals or arcs are thus mechanically based: build a wizard's tower, not bc I envision one in my mind's eye but because it generates x bonus for y Capital or GP. I want to hit L5 so I can get a sacred mount; I want to hit L8 bc Scout's Charge, and so on.

Now, bc of this style of play, they never go LOOKING for anything, at least, nothing specific. The rogue PC for example has owned a bar she helped build since L3. Rather than develop a guild, or even keep tabs on specific things in the city, since APL4, during Downtime, the player rolls Gather Info checks and asks me what rumors she's hearing around the bar, or occasionally she'll use Stealth and Perception to eavesdrop from the rooftops at night.

It's hard to explain in text, but the player is waiting for plot points to come TO her, not exploring them on her own, y'know? Like they never ask "are there notable dragons in the area?" and research that, but if a rumor of a dragon hit's their ears they seize on it, use spells and skills to learn all they can then spear-head an attack on the thing's lair.

So, for all the above reasons, I'll probably have an NPC they interacted with, who has ties to the plane of fire, show up at one of their doors near death. He'll explain how things have gotten crazy there and the Sultana of the City of Brass has started a planar war. That'll be the push they need to start the decision tree they need to work through to resolve specific plot points.

From there the PCs will then research, figure out what spells/items they need for planar survival, go to the plane of fire, and start fighting Mortal Kombat style up a chain of planar foes until they deal with the Sultana herself.

At level 4, there can be a big difference between making the roll and not.

1d20+7+Int to make a DC 23 requires a 16 or higher, meaning a 25% chance of success vs a DC 17, which requires a 10. 50% chance of success.

Plus, at a 16 or higher, a DC 17 would allow 1 additional useful piece of information. I was trying to get an in-game reason why my character, who had been using an MW Battleaxe the entire campaign so far, would switch to a +1 dagger without metagaming.

1d20+7+Int requiring a 16 to hit a DC 23 means you have no bonus from Int. Do I have this correct?

Assuming an Int based PC has the Knowledge (Planes) skill and it's a Class skill, I'd figure the PC is at least +9; Class Skill +3, 4 ranks, and Int bonus of +2. In fact, I'd figure it'd be higher.

I don't know the area in which the PCs are encountering the barghest, but at the end of the day it is a CR8 creature. Your PCs are under WBL and only APL4 to start with, so I'm guessing this fight was being issued by your GM to either urge you to learn how to run away, negotiate with your foes, or to so severely challenge the PCs physically as to discourage or end your current plan of action in the AP.

My advice, for future encounters regardless of the DC of the knowledge checks: get your Int based PC to an 18 or better Int, pay the GP for the spell and it's costly components to have Visualization of the Mind somewhere in the party (200 GP components, but 24 hrs of +5 on Int based checks), figure a way for the Int based PC to have a Familiar for potential Aid Another on Knowledge checks, scout ahead whenever possible.

And until the GM gets you up to your WBL, start buying or making a lot of consumables. Potions, Scrolls and Wands, though they eat up actions to use, will give you +1 weapons, Bless, possibly even Divine Favor or Magic Stone for stonebows. If your GM isn't giving you +1 weapons but they're throwing such powerful bosses at you, every +1 helps.

How many barghests are there to encounter in the AP? How common is graffiti depicting the monster, or scenes of folks sitting around in taverns swapping stories about them?

I haven't played the AP but reading entries about Sandpoint it seems fairly common knowledge that there's a couple goblin tribes living near the town. In turn, Goblins seem a pretty safe bet for a common monster to make a knowledge check for.

You COULD then make the argument that Barghests, often associated with being leaders of goblin groups, are talked about often by those who make it their profession to deal with goblins: adventurers, military folk, religious or arcane leaders, and so on. A town library, if well curated, might contain material on such creatures if goblins are frequently encountered in the hinterlands and so on.

My point is, there's an argument that can certainly be made, around Sandpoint, that "barghest" could be a Knowledge check with a DC = 10+ CR. Knowing this particular barghest is named Bob and has ingested specific sacrifices that make it even more developed than the 2 stages the creature normally has might not be in scope for that roll however.

Tables will vary. As this is the rules forum, I don't know that there's a specific RAW that will support either interpretation. I'm just saying the argument to make a Barghest common exists in RotRL.

Phoebus, the PCs are a Wizard (Fire Elementalist)13, Paladin 13, and an Un Rogue (Scout) 13. The Paladin travels with his Cleric of Pharasma 11 Cohort and the Rogue has a Bard (Busker Bard) 11 Cohort.

About midway through the campaign, the PCs began collecting lesser maguffins which would get them to the maguffin they now seek. One of those lesser quests involved fire elementals, the City of Brass and a possible connection between the wizard and a matriarch of the city. I've also planted seeds of a war on that plane which could spill across multiple planes.

I think this is probably the direction I will take things. The players don't seem particularly interested but I don't really have any other plot threads hanging out there since I figured I'd wrap the campaign when the current BBEG buys it.

For even more info, the players are vets who've played PF1 exclusively since '09, so they are very good technically. The one concession I gave them before starting is that they get to roll stats so the PCs have some ridiculously high arrays as no one rolled particularly bad. That, coupled with crafting their own items, being extremely methodical over time and just being very good at combat mechanics means that putting fight scenes in front of these PCs can swing wildly.

Thanks for the suggestions D O. For reference if folks need it, the setting is the area around Endholme in the Lost Lands setting of the Frog God Games/Necromancer Games world. As for NPCs, there are staggeringly few.

You're right, One Who Does Not Die, my players are obsessively focused on the mechanics and fighting of this game system. They like playing the system, with story being secondary. 2 of them HAVE come around a bit on this over the past year (we play monthly sessions), but this helps explain why they have so few NPC connections. In short, every campaign they've played before now they've been CN mercenary types just looking to amass personal power.

Your point about multiple conflicts at once though is a good point. Right now at 13th level the PCs have a single dungeon and regardless of its size they essentially have 2 things they have to get done: find a maguffin and also find the entry point to the BBEG's lair.

They've never really had to deal with multiple fires at once. Thanks again for the bit of advice, I'll take it to heart. If anyone else has adventures I should review or other suggestions let me know.

You're a 15 point buy, 3/4 BAB PC with limited armor options. Mysterious Stranger had some great suggestions but I want you to consider the following:

1. if you have an animal companion, you have to equip it. Barding or armor, Amulet of Mighty Fists, and other gear to protect this class feature means your PC will have to split their resources between outfitting the PC and outfitting the Companion. Plan your build accordingly.

2. You have a weak Ref save; your AC will have a weak Will save. With a 15 point buy and limited resources, you'll need to monitor how often these weaknesses are exploited by your enemies and plan accordingly, perhaps by taking feats to shore them up

Can I point out something here that no one else has? Perception is a Class skill for your, Wisdom is an important stat for your PC and by 4th level you can assume Small size (+4 Size bonus to Stealth) and several potential movement types including a Fly speed. If you're only playing Core rules, 15 point buy and splitting your resources between your PC and your Animal Companion, you're probably not going to be the big melee bruiser of your team.

Wildshape gives you the versatility to function in so many ways other than as a high Str melee with multiple natural weapon attacks per round. Since you're a vanilla, Core druid, by L2 you'll be moving through most natural environs without reducing your movement and by 3rd, again in natural environs, you don't leave tracks either. Scouting may be much more in your wheelhouse in these natural environs than for any other PC.

Speaking of movement and Wildshape: let's talk about Flanking. You're a 3/4 BAB and don't have a lot of feats - attack bonuses to boost your accuracy with your natural attacks in Wildshape will be important. Your Animal Companion is a built in flanker and Flanking gives you both a +2 to attack after you're both already in position.

Getting into a flank can be dangerous, especially w/out access to Teamwork Feats. Taking Dodge and Mobility however would give one of you the chance to move through a threatened area at full speed without triggering AoOs. That's a handy way to get both of you into a flank while minimizing the danger of the movement it takes to get there.

Lastly, a bit of advice if you find your GM is limiting your resources as a party: make consumables. You stop in a village or hamlet, visit with a roadside peddler or otherwise have the chance to buy things? Make sure someone in the party can make Scrolls, Potions or Wands, then buy the materials to make such things and make them. Often.

A cheap CL3 scroll of Bull's Strength costs 75 GP to make but ensures an extra 3 minutes of your day when you've got +2 Attack and Damage w/all those natural weapon attacks of yours. And remember: YOU can supply the spell if someone ELSE has the Item Creation feat in order to make these items. Having a bunch of 12.5 GP Summon Nature's Ally I scrolls around is a way to put living obstacles and flankers on the map if you're desperate, or set off certain traps.

I haven't run an adventure ever above level 15, and rarely make it to level 10 before real life conspires against one of my campaigns. For several years I have run a hybrid of the Lost City of Barakus and homebrewed adventures which is nearing it's natural conclusion in the megadungeon; PCs are L13 and hot on the heels of the BBEG of the titular lost city.

A couple sessions ago my players asked if we can continue this campaign after this expected end. I have to admit, this stopped me. I'd fully planned to start a new campaign in the setting to the point where I'd already started writing up random encounter tables.

Anyone have tips or suggestions for adventures between 15th-20th level? Like, I can pick some monsters out of the bestiaries and try to come up with fights but I don't have a lot of plot threads dangling out there. I do have one re: the elemental plane of fire and a war there, but like I said I didn't really revisit that, instead thinking I'd end and restart something new.

Dex does everything else, why do we need it to do damage too? Like, I know others have mentioned this but Dex is your defense, your attack bonus with ranged attacks, your ref saves, 7 skills I think and with 1 feat it's your attack bonus for low to mid damage melee weapons. I want it to be niche to use it for damage too or else everyone planning to use a melee weapon is going to front load Dex.

The ONLY thing I'm upset that Dex doesn't do is: you can never use Dex as your attack stat when wielding the melee portion of a slingstaff. Seriously folks, you took the 1 core race that is Dex heavy, Str light and made their racial weapon impossible to finesse.

Isn't melee DPR for Dex builds based more around # of attacks/round and add-ons like Sneak Attack though? Like, a barbarian 10 has ridiculously high Str damage, Power attack, and then 3 attacks while hasted. A chained rogue has what, potentially 5 melee attacks while hasted and, depending on the circumstances might be adding SA 1 or more times?

Like, I figured the classic trade-off for going Dex based in melee, offensively anyway, was more attacks doing less damage individually while Str based was less attacks but bigger damage per hit. And to reiterate what others have said, every class can benefit defensively from putting points into Dex, but not every class benefits from Str offensively.

The poor Monk has no options for Dex to damage with unarmed strike and they are a Dex based class.

I hate that the Dex to damage feats are too specialized. There should have been only one feat that lets you pick any one weapon that is a finesse weapon(including unarmed strike and natural attacks) plus the requirements should only be weapon finesse and Dex 13.

I don't know that monks are designed for DPR. The vanilla Chained monk is designed around Str for attack and damage, Dex and Wis for defenses. As they level they get some offensive as well as a number of defensive abilities. Also the vanilla monk is slightly better with maneuvers than other 3/4 BAB attackers.

If you're building your monk for melee DPR, you want to take advantage of full Str bonus to damage on unarmed attacks and Flurry right? What am I missing?

In my own games players get to play characters they want, using skills and stats to create a fantasy that might not match their own reality. Physically weak players get to play brawny melee full-BAB types. Folks who bombed their SATs can run arcane spellcasters with limitless knowledge. Socially awkward types can play honey-tongued PCs who are masters at manipulation.

I don't demand that any of these types of players roleplay or act out exactly what their PCs are doing when they use skills and abilities they don't possess IRL. If they want to haggle, negotiate, make peace treaties, coerce enemies to their cause and so forth, I make the social contract w/my players that regardless of what THEY'RE capable of, I will respect the combo of their PC's skills, Cha, items/spells/feats being used, and the general reputation of the character in determining how successful their attempted action is.

Haggling and "verbal duels" happen in my games and have since before UC came out. I've always run them like 4e Skill Challenges, with any PCs either contributing Primary or Secondary successes. Primary is one success on the road to victory; Secondary acts like an Aid Another on someone's Primary attempt.

Early in my current campaign, the PCs got themselves a great deal on horses, then later a cart and some trade goods. Such haggling over the years has also netted them weapons, trade deals, and a couple of peace accords with evil or CN enemies. They even used a combo of Diplomacy, Knowledge (Planes), Linguistics and Perform (Sing) to coerce an elemental prince to allow the party to use a portal to just outside the City of Brass.

Quick note on WBL: a CR 1/4 mite has Sleight of Hand +9 and Stealth +13. A CR6 Lake Troll gets an auto Sunder on a PC's worn/held item on a 20 and has +14 on Sunder attempts; success means they deal Sunder damage to the item on top of their normal damage to the PC.

In short: there's ways to take stuff from the PCs. Some WBL, such as horses or businesses, don't really have much game impact. If however the PC just haggled well and got a +2 Holy longsword super cheap and the rest of the party just got their first Belt or Circlet, that longsword wielder might need to get hit by a rust monster or something.

This is a fantasy game filled with magic. One of the Core classes has an at-will ability to detect evil as the spell. My point is that if a player lost their PC and wants to keep playing in the form of a new character, let them.

There are a million ways to write them into the existing story. If the immersion and storytelling is 2-dimensional, like a check-your-head-at-the-door kind of hack-n-slash game, the new PC just appears by magic. If the story is more of a factor:

they're a fan of the PCs and were secretly stalking them

they are a divine/profane servant to aid the PCs

the NPC is afflicted by a Geass or Quest spell and must help the PCs

a former minion of the BBEG that sees the party as a common enemy

local celebrity seeking fame, fortune and glory

I'm sure there could be more, but hopefully you see my point. If a PC is like, DEAD dead in one of my games, I have a 1-on-1 with my player. I ask would they rather stop playing the rest of the campaign, bring back this current PC or bring in someone new?

Depending on their answer I'll contrive some way to make it happen as a GM.

No gems with unique properties that translate to game mechanics, no, but in the 1st Ed DMG from D&D on pages 26 and 27 there's a table called Reputed Magical Properties of Gems. Said table indicates that Crystaline "wards off spells" and Sard "benefits Wisdom." Again, no game mechanics but there you go.

The only unique gems in PF1 I think are magic items like Ioun Stones or other wondrous items. A couple of the special materials are stone, not metal or wood, so they might be adapted to what you want but I don't know.

PCs are 13th level in the megadungeon now. They know their final boss is hiding somewhere in the dungeon they haven't gotten to yet and also know they have to collect 3 maguffins, empower a weapon to be able to damage said final boss, and have 2 of the items for the rite.

Currently they're exploring the deepest section of the place they've found so far. Following old, charred footprints on the floor the PCs entered a series of rooms with magma bubbling up (Fort saves to avoid Fatigue every minute) and a cadre of burning skeleton/skeletal champions made from the remains of fire giants with fighter levels guarding the skeletal remains of their king and a bunch of treasure.

Combat ensued, undead destroyed, treasure acquired.

After that, PCs note a hallway behind a secret door and hear a whispered voice from down that hallway. Moving to investigate the party's movement is detected and whoever is speaking casts a spell while still out of sight and flees; loud booming footsteps far away are also heard and a door slamming.

PCs continue forward and the tunnels and chambers ahead begin filling with fog. PC wizard recognizes Guards and Wards, dispels it, and the party continues. Without the fog, PC rogue easily detects and removes an Acid Pit trap, then the PCs make it past a lone Gravesludge and up a short flight of steps to a door.

Here they encounter Festus the Mad, a paranoid wizard convinced that the feminine shaped Iron Golem he commands is actually his wife. Knock spell, door opens, PCs engage, and after taking some damage and a cohort needing a Breath of Life spell, Festus is nearly dead and the IG is slightly damaged.

The villain teleports away, managing to remove the gold wedding band from the construct's finger before disappearing. The PC wizard however just happens to have Control Construct for the day so he casts that, marches "Jocasta" the IG to one of the magma pools and lets her melt into oblivion.

One very minor thing to point out, and it's kind of negligible, is that if you're a heavily armored melee type you likely start with some kind of martial weapon proficiency. If in that case you want to sword and board with an axe instead, the battle axe costs 5 GP less than the longsword, but it weighs 2lbs more. IDK if folks even really use starting gold anymore when building PCs, but there you go.

The Angry GM has a series on the basics of creating a campaign. The link is the intro to that series. There are also lots of other blogs or advice columns out there on creating and running your own homebrew campaign.

Your synopsis is just that: a synopsis. The characters start here, do this stuff in the middle, and end up here. You're not really missing anything but details, but again, this is a synopsis.

I'd say the only thing you've gotta decide, before you start a homebrewed campaign is: how linear do you want it to be? You've got the bare bones, know who your villains are going to be and you understand their motivations. Do you want the players stuck on a single track from the first adventure to the last, do you want the PCs to have free rein to go wherever they want, or do you want some hybrid where most PCs' decisions still lead back to the main plot in some way.

The 2 extremes are easy to map out. The hybrid is a bit more challenging and will depend on the attitudes and playstyle of the group. If the players are vets of RPGs and PF1 specifically, let them lead; if they're novices you'll need to prep NPCs, foreshadowing and clues you can plant that reconnect disparate plot lines to the main one.

Last but not least, running a long term campaign that isn't being run like an AP can be very reactionary for the GM. You might plan for an obvious clue to take the PCs from one settlement in trouble to the next, but the players might decide instead to go elsewhere, pursue a different villain or whatever. No matter how well you've outlined your game, now you as the GM have decisions to make in response to your players.

I guess it sort of depends on the kid and the story at hand. If the campaign is a wilderness hexcrawl or megadungeon and the orphaned girl has no chance to reach civilization, take the kid with me. If this is an urban intrigue game and the child has no seeming significance to the plot, place her with some kind of organization or friendly NPC with the funds to care for them.

As to the moments, days or years they were in my care, I'd cherish them. All children, even fictional ones, deserve safety, happiness and protection against the darkness of the world.

Depending on the character, this might take many forms. Reluctantly holding hands and skipping, enthusiastically singing and playing games, or gruffly bundling them against the weather even though the clothes are itchy. The one thing all of my characters would have in common is the thought that this child is precious, but also a small person and not some mewling animal or automaton.

If they turn out to be a villain in disguise, then I'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Otherwise this girl is in trouble, and they need our help. We don't exist solely for ourselves, or to fight a war, or to relentlessly seek an ancient witch or whatever. If we can't do our best to help one little girl, what good are we actually doing?

When he was found by Odin, Loki was a scared little baby on a rock left to die. His whole life he grew up in the shadow of his half brother; while perhaps his mother taught him magic or his father showed him combat, neither really heaped their love upon him.

Loki's "friends" in the movies were Thor's allies who tolerated him so long as Thor was around. By the time we meet him Loki is a conniving villain, bent on domination. The Loki we come to know in S1 however exposes his truth; it was all a facade to shield himself from the rejection he's felt his entire life.

In S2 Loki proclaims to Sylvie that he doesn't want to be alone. All through the season he seems to demonstrate a genuine care for these mortals, feelings he didn't have about anyone else except perhaps his brother. All that scared little boy ever wanted was connection, belonging, not to be left alone.

The final shot of the season broke me. That was the absolute definition of bittersweet. I'm guessing we'll get more of Tom's Loki; he's good for the bottom line after all. But to finish his arc in the series in that way, in that moment.

That was cruel, even for him that was cruel.

How do you see force energy?

with my eyes.

Narratively speaking I've described it as a variety of things: a pneumatic blast of super-dense air, a blue, glowing missile or fist; an eerie, pallid wall.

A big part of the narrative, for me anyway, is WHEN I describe it. For example, with Magic Missile spells, I never describe it leaving the caster's finger/wand/staff etc. Instead, they gesture toward a target and suddenly there are strange flashes of cobalt energy as some invisible force seems to slam said target and causing them severe pain.

A wall of force however might appear visible for a brief second when cast, then disappears from view, but when bumped into ripples with the impact before disappearing once more.

I'm liking S2 so far. Scenes like the automat, interrogation of X5 or others where there's plot development alongside moments of genuine character. I really like long, single takes like walk-and-talks that keep the tension because of the kind of shot, even when the characters are saying banal things. Like, over and over this show reveals that you can have people that act like real people while also having a riveting super hero thriller.

Some of it's confusing. Loki, god of mischief/magic guy, fights TVA in large open room with knives. Trying to piece together that Brad Wolf went back to his life on the sacred timeline long enough to make Zaniac but there's no telling how much time passed for Mobius/Loki from E1 to E2. The time loom.

The cons for me so far don't outweigh the pros. I've got the same fatigue everyone above has mentioned, but I like that the show gets back to the central premise at the heart of Marvel comics: regular people that just happen to have superpowers/tech.

I'll second BN: start with the Knowledge skills. Dungeoneering might tell you the migration patterns of Darkmantles; Arcana warns you what dragon-kin might live in the area and how to avoid them. Then there's alchemy or prestidigitation to create smells. Many creatures might be lured or repelled by the right scent and knowledge or survival could inform a PC.

As for class abilities to help with this, I'd imagine any class that can craft traps, set down Alarm spells or glyphs, craft alchemical items or has bonuses to monster lore checks would all be at an advantage. If you're in an enclosed environment like cave tunnels or dense jungle, having magic to seal off the path behind you or progress without making sound or leaving tracks would keep things from following you.

The biggest thing is that players need to anticipate this and plan accordingly. Not a lot of folks think to bring Brewed Reek with them on an adventure, but if you know you're heading into an area with mites (Fey creatures with the Scent ability) you might pick some up to obscure your path with a stench so foul it deters the mites from your area.

Maybe stop giving PCs any treasure they can individually use. If any of the PCs wear armor, don't give out magic armor; only hand out Huge or Tiny sized magic weapons; consumables with spells like Restore Corpse or Business Booms? In other words, force ALL magic item treasures to be sold for 1/2 price so you don't have to run into a problem of equitable distribution.

Morals in a game is a 2 way street.

Lawful good combines honor with compassion.

As I said, I tell my players if this is a "heroic" game and what that means for me as a GM in session 0. My expectation is that, after the game starts and the players are aware, they will actually form up some idea of the values and morals for their PCs, then stick to them unless a significant campaign event changes their outlook.

I'm not saying every LG PC has to play like a boy scout in my games, but every LG PC should have that core compassion and express it consistently. The players running those characters should be aware of this ahead of time and plan accordingly.

It is frustrating that like in Lilliyashania's assessment, players in my games only seem to consider the rights and autonomy of villains I as a GM have to put special care and attention into RPing. One guy joked that "if the GM gives an NPC a name, they're worth talking to." Like, if you're playing a good character in one of my games, it shouldn't take me tricking you into starting a dialogue with an NPC or villain.

Whatever; playstyles vary, I get that.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If the PCs come upon Decimus Meridias Koboldikus, father of a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, who will have his revenge in this life or the next, desperately seeking justice but being incredibly ruthless and evil in the process, and the players learn all of this about koboldikus, they might try to reason with him, try to find common ground and maybe, over time, the warlord comes to a grudging respect for the sanctity of life.

if he pings Evil when the paladin uses Detect Evil, then I'm pretty sure there won't be any reasoning....

Matter of playstyle. Have a paladin in my megadungeon game, plays like you say. I call it the Jack Burton of paladin: "Evil? (Detect Evil says "Evil.")F*** it!" and hacks through kobold.

Had another paladin in a campaign years ago. Player started every scene with some kind of conversation and attempted Diplomacy before I called for initiative when he could. He turned both a fey and a kobold to the side of good before the campaign ended. He DID use Detect Evil, but only after opening lines of communication or if said communication broke down.

In short, no 2 paladins are the same. No 2 players are the same. Matter of playstyle.

Paraphrase from the lips of the guy playing the paladin in my megadungeon campaign: why should we run from our foes? If we skip 'em or run from them, they'll just be a potential threat later. If we negotiate with them now they can still be enemies later. Plus either we're strong enough to destroy them now, or we need to run the other direction because what creature strong enough to just kill us is going to negotiate with us?

Again, that's the guy running the paladin.

Playstyles will very wildly. Some players don't see their hobby as anything more than a board game with extra rules and never invest in the morals or ethics of it all. Some players on the other extreme are aspiring thespians who immerse themselves into a very living role where even goblins have feelings.

From a mechanical standpoint, there's spells or class abilities to tell you if an NPC/monster is immutably Evil; there are certain mindless creatures that couldn't redeem themselves or creatures literally created from Evil that won't ever see the light.

And yet...

In the show Supernatural there was a demon, Crowley, who begins as a soul broker and eventually becomes the king of hell. He betrays the main characters many times and yet there is one season where a major plot arc ends with the demon, who was once very mortal, regaining a sense of his humanity. Several times Crowley does very unselfish things and ultimately dies a noble death.

In PF1, ostensibly a corrupted soul is remanded to the abyss where it is further transmuted by the plane into a thing of pure evil. Over time that creature may attain more status and power by committing more atrocities. Somewhere though, deep in the core of that being, is the tiniest fragment of a mortal soul.

It is not inconceivable, however unlikely, that a demon could be redeemed in PF1. All it would take is the willing participation of GM and player.

I think another element, besides playstyle, is pathos. PCs meet faceless kobold guards trying to ambush them at night, it's murder time.

If the PCs come upon Decimus Meridias Koboldikus, father of a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, who will have his revenge in this life or the next, desperately seeking justice but being incredibly ruthless and evil in the process, and the players learn all of this about koboldikus, they might try to reason with him, try to find common ground and maybe, over time, the warlord comes to a grudging respect for the sanctity of life.

I don't know how anyone else runs their games so I don't know how morality plays into yours. Every game that I run, at session 0, I let my players know what I'm looking for narratively. I might tell the players anything goes, or this is an evil campaign, or you need to pick some kind of Good alignment and in this campaign you're trying to be heroes.

If I haven't set rules from the start or this is an evil campaign and a PC whacks an NPC because they look gross and act rude, I don't care. If however this is one of my "heroic" campaigns and the same thing happens there will be immediate and lasting consequences.

PF1 has its own pantheon based on the Golarion setting. Among those deities is Sarenrae, literally a goddess of redemption. Redemption is also a Domain and an Inquisition. If this path is so potent, so possible that it literally manifests as a source of power to clerics and inquisitors, then "heroes" should be aware of this power as a tool in their belts.

As for the consequences: arrest or sanctions by the local law, loss of reputation and respect by the populace at large, active enmity by local intelligent foes made aware of the PCs' actions, or active attempts to recruit the PCs into more evil. Sustained evil acts can lead to alignment changes which, in turn might affect some classes.

Don't know if you're still looking for ideas but oozes are fun. Alchemical Ooze Swarms are low-level swarms of amoeba-like oozes that form from the run-off from alchemical waste. You could also use Fleshwarping to great effect. Another way to think of this... consider the Umbrella Corporation from the Resident Evil series.

They were developing a virus that you could swap for an alchemical substance that would prolong and improve the host's life. They lured groups of elite soldiers and corporate dissidents into an old manor house with multiple underground levels. there were "fast zombies" as well as standard ones, that ginormous mutant hulk thing they call a Nemesis, mutated dogs; you could beef up the stats of an Akata (CR 1 Aberration), and so on.

If you throw in a ghostly illusion of a girl with a Magic Mouth effect and some kind of Fire damage "laser" trap, I wouldn't stop you! Just have fun with it.

138. Carmen San Diego

Slipslinger Style, Slipslinger Grenadier, Slipslinger Bombardment. These three feats, taken together & with all the other prereqs, let you sling multiple alchemical splash weapons as ammo in your sling. The vials still do your normal sling's damage, then also add the damage the splash weapon adds.

So if your slingstaff damage is normally 1d4+6 per bullet, now you're dealing that plus the energy damage of whatever splash weapon you have loaded and it deals 1 pt of splash damage to all adjacent creatures as well. They're not arrows but there you go.

Evil undead worshipping a dark god = Fertility? I would think Fey = fertility.

Lord and council have an uneasy alliance with evil undead for years; during this time, lord can't conceive. Recently a group of fey have entered the nearby wilderness, sensing the unnatural aura of the ruined temple and it's occupants.

If the lord is aware of the fey in some way, why would he make a secret deal to send MORE souls to their deaths for some potential fertility rite when he might instead negotiate w/the fey?

How about: the undead are growing restless as their god is beginning to weaken. They demand greater sacrifices. The lord however, with his eyes on the future and his own legacy, grows a conscience. In secret he begins grooming the adventurers; giving gold anonymously to their efforts, planting clues to guide them towards the fey and so on.

Meanwhile the noble is trying to coax the fey into a war against the undead. He will then swoop in, reveal himself as the mysterious benefactor, and beg a boon from his fey "allies" to ensure an heir.

Just because your U-Rogue (Scout)7 or U-Monk 7 is CAPABLE of reaching a Young Adult Black Dragon/CR 10 in 1 round, that doesn't mean you SHOULD charge in and attack the monster 1 time each. Said dragon has Power Attack, a BAB+12 and 23 Str fueling 6 attacks in a full attack round.

After the rogue died, had to be saved by the one and only Breath of Life scroll the PCs had purchased ahead of time, and then the monk was hit 5 of 6 times on round 2 and died, the players had a private chat between sessions about the virtues of sticking together in melee combat.

Also, glitterdust isn't JUST for blinding enemies. The BBEG in a fight against the party seemed to heal AND get stronger for 2 rounds until the party realized that there were 2 kobold NPC Adept 7 minions standing near the dragon casting spells on it to keep it going. They realized that AFTER glitterdust had been cast on several very visible kobold minions earlier in the dragon's cave lair.

I chalk all that up to overconfidence. Sometimes we're just feeling our oats as players. During those times, GMs can and WILL take full advantage.

If you use the narrative method, or setting and story have any influence on your choices as GM at all, consider the buildings in your settlement, the reasons for it's qualities. An Insular village with Rumormongering Citizens that sustains itself on agriculture probably isn't going to have a lot of wizards with spells to sell.

On the flipside, what if the town contains a wizard's academy? The secret government manipulating the lord mayor is a cabal of arcanists? The tiny hamlet is Magically Attuned to some Arcane phenomena that materializes every year in the hot springs nearby? All of these and more might mean there's a constant flow of people with spellbooks looking to earn some extra income selling access to their spells.

1000 GP limit and 2nd level casting means you're looking at a Hamlet. This is a tiny settlement with no more than 60 people there. Are they going to have both an Arcane AND divine caster in residence? Is the Arcane caster the right kind of caster to sell spells to the PC? What makes sense narratively for your campaign?

For a hard-and-fast mechanic, the 75% chance works but if I have the time and mental faculties I try and answer these three questions. With the themes I put into my homebrews, settlements the size of a village or smaller tend to have only a single spellcaster with a broad range of spells: Bards, NPC Adepts, Shamans or Witches for example. These are folks with healing or curative magic that might also combine a few utilities from Arcane caster lists.

This doesn't always mean the wizard buying spells for their spellbook is out of luck however. There might be other adventurers passing through willing to sell a spell or two from their own books; perhaps the townsfolk have old wizard scrolls or a spellbook to sell that they can't use; maybe there is a crazy hermit living in a tower near the hamlet that is rumored to be a wizard themselves.

A lot of this depends on what spell the player wants his PC to buy. Are they looking for Jump or Magic Missile, staples of these RPGs going back to the late '70's? I'll probably just handwave it. Are the PCs about to go underwater and the PC wants Monkey Fish? That might involve some scrounging around.

This one hurts a bit more. Pee Wee's Big Adventure was an extreme favorite that united my entire family as kids, in the face of childhood trauma. Rest in peace Paul Reubens.

On the SRD, under Equipment; Furniture, it lists a small stone statue as 300 lbs. Under Equipment; Trade Goods it lists marble at 5GP/LB. So a small statue, just in materials alone, would cost 1500 GP if made from solid marble. Going by the same tables, a small metal statue, made of copper, would weigh 420 lbs but cost only 210 GP for material alone.

In short, statues are heavy and expensive.

But then, what if the PC wants cast bronze instead? Start with bronze, a metal not listed in trade goods, then instead of the thing being solid all the way through its cast over ceramic and ultimately hollow inside. It would weigh less and likely not be the same cost as copper.

In the end I'd say make up a number you think the PC could afford but would be steep. Let the PCs decide how important the statue is and if they want to somehow defray the costs by spending Goods, Labor, Influence or even Magic capital. They might also spend their own time and money creating the statue if they have the right skills.

All opponents in the Web spell take 2d4 Fire damage if the webs are set on fire. 1. have a familiar, 2. make sure the familiar has some way of dealing Fire damage that will ignite flammables. In 1 round you can deliver Grappled, Difficult Terrain, and potentially Cover or Total Cover for you, all while dealing the familiar's normal Fire damage and an ongoing 2d4 extra Fire damage.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

If a foe attacks the rogue and hits her with a melee attack that also has Grab, leading to the rogue being Grappled by said attack, and also that attack would cause the rogue to be reduced to 0 HP, would the rogue move to avoid?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the rogue would be reduced to 0 HP by the damage from the melee attack. If that's the case, she could take a 5-foot step. As long as she ends outside the reach of the attacker that effectively makes the attack a "miss" so the attacker would not have a chance to grab.

Quote:

Second question: if the rogue is already IN a grapple, fails to break free, then takes damage as part of the grapple action that would reduce her to 0 HP, would she move as an Immediate action?

The grapple prevents her from taking a 5-foot step, so she could not use Another Day.

You're correct on your understanding of question 1 and both your answers were what I was thinking, but it's good to have the confirmation!

Elf Unchained Rogue (Scout) 12 in my megadungeon campaign. PCs just leveled to 12 and the PC took the Another Day Advanced Rogue Talent:

Prerequisite: Advanced talents

Benefit: Once per day, when the rogue would be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by a melee attack, she can take a 5-foot step as an immediate action. If the movement takes her out of the reach of the attack, she takes no damage from the attack. The rogue is staggered for 1 round on her next turn.

If a foe attacks the rogue and hits her with a melee attack that also has Grab, leading to the rogue being Grappled by said attack, and also that attack would cause the rogue to be reduced to 0 HP, would the rogue move to avoid?

Second question: if the rogue is already IN a grapple, fails to break free, then takes damage as part of the grapple action that would reduce her to 0 HP, would she move as an Immediate action?

I need to get these questions answered as we have game day tomorrow and I have grappling undead on tap. Thanks!

Weird. Your OP suggests Brawler ?/Cleric 1, no mention of Oracle 5. Also how would being oiled and clothing optional help with Grappling, mechanically? Are you saying you want a PC to wait minimum 7 levels for Swallow Whole, all the while relying on spells and Brawler class ability to provide AC? I'm dumbfounded, not by the PC's lubrication or susceptibility to catching cold, but to how they'll be succeeding in combat.

So Channel Energy is a mechanic utilizing Cha. This ability enables a PC to harness and redirect an amount of Positive or Negative energy to either heal or harm some creatures, or to fuel specialized functions. Also Cha represents the measure of "unnatural lifeforce" that fuels an Undead creature. What if Cha then is specifically tied to these primal forces of the universe?

What if a high Cha score means you have an above average reservoir of "lifeforce energy?" If Con is a measure of your body's health, Cha is a measure of your soul's. This in turn gives you a preternatural edge influencing the life energies of those around you; while Intimidate is a skill you train and practice in, a high Cha allows your soul to add that much more primal fear to your words and actions that your victim feels on a spiritual level.

This then would translate to Oracles. If a mundane human were "cleansed" with holy fire, their soul would likely not survive and the charring of their flesh would end their physical life as well. An Oracle however suffers a permanent blackening of their body but because their soul is made of sterner stuff the creature survives the ordeal and forms a bond to the divine energy that marked them.

But whatever, I just like to make oracles like I make my sorcerers; as comic book super heroes. The blinded curse? That's because when I was a kid I knocked an old man out of the way of a careening alchemist's cart and was splashed in the eyes by random chemicals. Since then my other senses have become heightened (Heightened Awareness spell) when I focus and I've developed other weird powers. I go around dressed all in red and throw my club at enemies. I also took a couple levels in monk...

For ease of use you can use multiple businesses in the same single skill check, but you can break them up if you want. Just remember your PC can only make 1 skilled work check/Downtime day.

A big reason to split them up would be to generate multiple types of Capital. For example, if you were playing a Wizard PC you could have that PC make a Knowledge: Arcana check using their Academy to generate Magic capital, but then the PC's other business, being a Tavern, could generate Influence for the PC to use for a different activity later in the Downtime.

If you are using skilled work to generate Capital, you take your skill bonus added to the modifiers from the rooms/teams of the business. You can choose to take 10 on this check.

If you're out of town the business can still generate GP or Capital. Simply take 10 and add that to the modifiers, no skill check involved. If on the other hand you have a Manager who is using their own skill in conjunction with the business, their skill's bonus can be added in place of your own.

When you choose to generate Capital instead of GP, you still have to pay the cost of the Capital even if you had been out of town/away. You can pay for some or all, but you need to pay that earned cost.

If you're looking for buildings and organizations to pay for themselves, it could take an entire campaign for that to happen. Gaining cheap Capital however is an easy way to gain up to a +5 on a skill check in the settlement or reduce the costs of crafting items. Also remember that Followers gained through Leadership can help. Finally certain Rooms or Teams can help with crafting.

Imagine you build the Scriptorium room and hire a Mage team representing a Wizard 3 NPC. Said NPC may have the Scribe Scroll feat and could be either generating Magic capital while you're away or producing cheap spell scrolls for you of L1 and L2 spells that NPC can cast or know.

Last but not least, there is no MECHANICAL reason to upgrade a Storage room to a Vault or an Office room. Instead the reason would be security.

An Office has a Simple lock on the door, so the room doesn't help you make money anymore but it does keep stuff stored inside safer. The Vault would be a further upgrade along the same idea.

However, remember that you can start with a Shack which only gives you a basic room for sleeping, including a cot. That room can be upgraded to Storage, then to an Office. During all of those upgrades, what happens to the cot from the Shack?

I've allowed players in my own games to build a Shack in a building, then upgrade it to an office and call that room their private bedroom. Its not helping them make extra GP or Capital b/c its a room with a desk, chair and a cot, enough for them to sleep, but ends up costing 120 GP worth of earned Capital as opposed to 300 GP for a Bedroom room.

An Office then, in my own games, is a private quarters fit for a single Medium sized PC. It has a Simple lock that can be upgraded if need be. It has enough simple furnishings that they can store their adventuring gear inside and can expect a level of security and privacy from their staff.

So like, anyone but me watching the show?

Kraven is a classic Spider Man villain, and when I say classic I mean from the 60's to maybe the 90's. I don't think he's been real relevant lately. That being said, if Morbius gave us Morbin' Time, Kraven is about to give us the Ravin' Kraven. In other words, I'll wait to see it at home.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Take a lot of ranks in Acrobatics and get comfortable with jumping a lot.

Am I missing some context?

Acrobatics wrote:

No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round.

Does "maximum movement" factor in medium and heavy armor reducing your speed? I figured, if the Fighter level hadn't gotten high enough yet to ignore such armor penalties a PC with high enough acrobatics and a base 20 move could jump up to 40' in a round. Maybe I have the ruling wrong though.

Oh, another thing the PC could do would be, with the 1 level dip into wizard, take the magic trick feats around floating disk, buy scrolls of it with a high enough CL to carry his own weight, then fly around on said disk.

Buy a light war horse; even cheaper take a rank in Handle Animal and by a Large sized horse to train yourself during Downtime. For a free mount, 1 level dip into Cavalier.

1 level dip into wizard; retain the Scribe Scroll bonus feat and take a Bonded Object. Every day you're not casting spells, take 2 hours (even when adventuring) and scribe scrolls if your GM allows it. Only ever take Expeditious Retreat on any given day.

1 level dip into Inquisitor for the Persistence Inquisition. Receive Step Up as a bonus feat and Swift Action to add +10' to your land speed 3 +Wis Mod/day.

1 level dip into Oracle for the Metal Mystery. This gives you access to Dance of Blades which adds +10' to your Base Speed so long as you're wielding a metal weapon.

Take a lot of ranks in Acrobatics and get comfortable with jumping a lot.

I'm running a megadungeon campaign, APL12. The NG Elf U-Rogue (Scout)12 in the party has a Perception +28 at this point so when she is ahead of the party searching for traps only the most high level spell traps matter. The PCs however have gotten so used to moving slowly but finding nearly everything along the way that none of them, not even the rogue has any sort of permanent Detect Magic going or magic items like a Gem of True Seeing.

This got me thinking: couldn't this party be tripped up by a simple Alarm spell? I'm not talking about a Proximity Trigger as part of a trap here, just a L1 spell cast by, say, an enemy wizard. The spell isn't called out as a spell trap and if it isn't part of a larger trap as the trigger mechanism, the only way to detect it in place is by magic right?